Why Buhari should consult among Civil Society leaders in Delta to appoint Amnesty Programme Coordinator

FocalPoint Editorial

By Ezekiel Kagbala FPR

Recently, there have been so much imbroglio and immodest lobbying by desperate power seekers and brokers, showing uncontrolled covetousness for the position of the Presidential Amnesty Programme coordinator.

Some ill intentioned government appointees, ministers, senators and even traditional rulers are projecting and recommending their favourite candidate thereby posing a monumental threat to the sustainability of the amnesty programme.

The Presidency should get it right before selfish interest plunges the already precarious and delicate nature of the Niger Delta region into another circumspectrum of crises. Building a sustainable peace presupposes a need for continuous education, orientation and awareness for repentant militants.

As regards appointing a new Amnesty Programme Coordinator, President Muhammadu Buhari must get it right by consulting among civil society groups who advocated for a peaceful Niger Delta during the rise of arms agitation and militancy in the Delta creeks.

The Niger Delta region of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was embroiled in a protracted crisis that was hinged on infrastructural deprivation of the people by the Federal Government.

The civil society groups x-rayed the dynamics and effects of their engagement in such struggles after giving consideration to substantive ethnic, regional and communal demands. The civil society groups advocated for peace in the region and originated the idea that has become the Amnesty programme.

Under the peace-building programme, the Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND) implemented projects that promotes information sharing, collaboration, and synergy among peace-building actors in the region.

Another civil society group, Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ) initiated programmes that resulted to peace-building programmes and also provided support to the economic development of the Niger Delta. They identified the root causes of conflicts in the region and tailored their advocacy towards the direction of continuous orientation.

Sadly, those who condemned violence and militancy in the creek were persecuted; some were kidnapped and killed by those who benefited from the violence that once bedeviled the region. Posterity will not let the hard works of these noble minded leaders to be in vain.

After decade of the creation of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, comes numerous petitions and allegations of corruption which have been a systemic problem with the programme. The Federal Government's resolve to address the root causes of underdevelopment in the Niger Delta that led to the arm agitations which necessitated the amnesty programme seem not to have attained its objectives.

Leaders and originators of non-violence education that gave rise to the Amnesty were neglected from inception of the presidential Amnesty Programme introduced by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2009.

The Federal Government made a terrible error of monetising the armnesty programme and reaped the sad consequences of ignoring the civil society leaders. Sadly, the programme became increasingly difficult for the Nigerian Government to fund. For instance, in May 2015, the allowance payments for the enrolled ex-militants had to be suspended. This made matters worse and reignited tensions as a large number of ex-militants are unemployed and highly dependent on the monthly allowances.

This progression in error must not continue. President Buhari should consult among the civil society groups and peace advocates from Delta state where the purpose of the amnesty programme emanated from and possibly appoint a coordinator for the amnesty programme from a civil society group.

Though the civil society groups are few, they have the sagacity to initiate programmes that will tackle wide socioeconomic grievances bordering on developmental deficit in local oil communities, environmental pollution and the exclusion of local communities from the governance of oil production in the Niger Delta region.

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